The president has never encountered a problem he can't imagine solving with violence.

People close to President Donald Trump say he wants to import the Asian practice of executing drug dealers, reports Jonathan Swan of Axios.

"According to five sources who've spoken with Trump about the subject, he often leaps into a passionate speech about how drug dealers are as bad as serial killers and should all get the death penalty," Swan reports.

Trump got the idea, Swan says, from the president of Singapore, who told Trump his country does not have a drug problem because they execute people who traffic drugs above a certain quantity threshold. Though Swan doesn't mention it, this law extends to marijuana traffickers.

Swan's report gives Kellyanne Conway some space to run some interference for the president:

Conway, who leads the White House's anti-drug efforts, argues Trump's position is more nuanced, saying the president is talking about high-volume dealers who are killing thousands of people. The point he's making, she says, is that some states execute criminals for killing one person but a dealer who brings a tiny quantity of fentanyl into a community can cause mass death in just one weekend, often with impunity.

Trump reportedly won't demand a capital-punishment-for-dealing bill because he thinks it's too radical. But if "kill 'em all" is Trump's opening bid, then we shouldn't be surprised when he kiboshes drug-related sentencing reform (which Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already denounced) and instead endorses a new five-year mandatory minimum for trafficking fentanyl in excess of two grams. Swan says he may back a bill along those lines.

Unfortunately, America seems particularly susceptible right now to this kind of idea. In 2015, an Ohio judge sentenced Edwin Sobony to two years' probation after he beat his wife's drug dealer with a baseball bat. "Vigilante justice is not supported by the court. But the people in this community have just had it," Judge Charles Schneider said at Sobony's sentencing. Assault with a baseball bat normally gets you prison time in Ohio, and the victim, a cousin of Sobony's wife, was hospitalized with a fractured skull. But Schneider said he was inundated with letters in Sobony's defense and noticed in the comments section of local news articles that people wanted to pay for Sobony's legal fees. The mob was feeling it, and Schneider listened.

The Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott, meanwhile, recently decided that selling a lethal dose of fentanyl should bring a charge of first-degree murder. The penalties for first-degree murder in Florida are life without parole and death.

We have seen this kind of response before. Back in 1995, then–Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called for the U.S. to begin executing people who smuggled drugs from overseas:

Mr. Gingrich, speaking to about 400 people at a money-raising event here for Representative Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia, said, "The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, 'Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?' the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically."

Mr. Gingrich said his proposal, which he said he would make in a bill to be filed next month, would impose a mandatory death penalty on people convicted of bringing illegal drugs into the United States.

"If you import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs," he said, "it is because you have made the personal decision that you are prepared to get rich by destroying our children. I have made the decision that I love our children enough that we will kill you if you do this."

Gingrich now supports drug sentencing reform, and he recently co-authored an op-ed titled "Opioid Addictions Won't be Cured by Tough Sentences." If he really is the Trump whisperer he claims to be, maybe Gingrich can talk some sense into the president. But I expect the mob instinct on this issue is far stronger.

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We need at least a dozen unnamed sources if we’re going to take stories about Trump seriously.

Indeed, as the things said by that man directly to anyone willing to listen are already within the confines of that category called “This Shit Is Just Unbelievable, What Else Is This Man Willing To Spew Out Lacking Any Possible Restraint?”

Anything else added to it might as well be made up because the truth is much, much worse.

I’m making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life.

He often jokes about killing drug dealers… He’ll say, ‘You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them.’ ? A senior administration official to Axios

Are you fucking serious? Is this what counts as news now?

Why would Trump talk about killing drug dealers and simultaneously have federal agencies on a reduced War on Drugs mission? Maybe Trump hyperbole or has TDS so fried your lefty brains that you assume everything a person says is absolutely what they will do?

“But the president doesn’t just joke about it. According to five sources who’ve spoken with Trump about the subject, he often leaps into a passionate speech about how drug dealers are as bad as serial killers and should all get the death penalty.”

I’m sorry it chaps your ass. But it’s pretty fucking relevant to at least talk about it. Probably nothing will come of it, but we still discuss what those in power are discussing even if it doesn’t come to pass.

I talk about how great it would be if every socialist was dead. I would not murder them even though they are trying to kill me. I would not order them killed even though they would order me shot.

For someone who is supposed to report news, to take what I say and make it seem like I will use all my resources to kill socialists right now is bullshit. Especially a private conservation that has context. Was it just venting?

As you say, maybe we should spy on everything our government says and does. You will get a class of government that never says what are thinking out loud. Like many tyrants in history, these types of sociopaths have one or two people that hear the truth while the rest of the orders get passed down .Obama never had anyone leak his private conversations that were not cleared for virtue-signalling. Obama never said anything objectionable? Funny how there are all these sources close to Trump that want to tattle on him.

But yeah, lets take a lefty media person’s word about how poopy Trump is and discuss that ad nauseam.

“For someone who is supposed to report news, to take what I say and make it seem like I will use all my resources to kill socialists right now is bullshit.”

First, Trump is the president, not just some random internet dude.

Second, *imagine if a President Hillary had said it*….. no one here, least of all you, would be excusing it as a joke.

Third, so what is the objective standard for which we should pay attention to what Trump says or does or tweets? Because it sure sounds like the “standard” is that when Trump says stupid shit that we like, then we ought to pay attention to him, evidence of leadership, etc., but if he says stupid shit that we don’t like, then we shouldn’t pay attention to him, “it’s just a joke”, etc., etc. I think Trump ought to be held to the same standard that we hold everyone to – telling jokes about wanting to kill drug dealers, *by a person who actually has the power to change policy in that direction*, is at the very minimum tasteless.

Like I said, maybe we should report everything non-internet dudes say that work in government.

Hillary has said worse and its been cleared from history forever.

Obama ordered Americans murdered via drone and his exact words for that order are classified in some BS operations report.

Lefties need to be careful of what they wish for because it tends to come back and bite them.

Evidently, based on sources that won’t reveal themselves, Trump mentioned that drug dealers should get the death penalty. Drug dealers that sell to kids are pieces of shit.

Let me know when there is a law working its way through Congress to execute drug dealers. Otherwise, lets focus on Hillary breaking federal law, North Korea threatening to nuke the USA, and vice crimes getting outrageous police attention.

Let me know when there is a law working its way through Congress to execute drug dealers.

The point is that by the time a law is working its way through congress, it’s too late. Politics lag culture, which means we need to pay attention to culture- like when people are floating trial idea balloons like “execute drug dealers”.

Overton windows matter, and it’s important to make sure certain things stay outside of it.

Mostly I just remember that announcement he made about solving the opioid crisis by threatening North Korea. Guy’s got a such good head on him and he’s in charge of a lot of stuff, seems like the things he says might be worth noticing in case he tries to build the wall by challenging China to an arm-wrestle or something.

I am not for drug prohibition, but am also not clear why, if a drug dealer mixes heroin with a lethal dose of fentanyl and it results in the death of someone they are not charged with, it would be wrong to charge them with at least second degree murder? Maybe negligent homicide. Didn’t their actions/negligence directly result in the death of the user? I agree first degree murder is a stretch, however.

if a drug dealer mixes heroin with a lethal dose of fentanyl and it results in the death of someone they are not charged with, it would be wrong to charge them with at least second degree murder?

But you will concede that there’s a big gulf between a drug dealer who willingly and maliciously adds fentanyl to a product he’s selling, and a regular off-the-mill marijuana dealer who sells the regular stuff to willing customers, correct? If you concede such, then what justifies Trump’s predilection for treating all drug dealers the same as serial killers?

Because what Trump is talking about (if sources are to be believed) is unleashing a level of violence not seen except in tyrannical regimes.

Did I say at any point I support the war on drugs, in my post or treating drug dealers the same as serial killers? Straw man much? I simply pointed out you can support the ending of drug prohibition while also supporting punishing those ehose actions result in harm to others.

1) Whether the drug dealer informed the user the product had been laced with fentanyl. For a lot of dope fiends this is a deal maker. Many look for a strong product that may have even killed other dope fiends because that means the shit is good.

2) Whether the user used other drugs such as alcohol which will increase the risk of overdose.

And then were do we draw the line. Alcohol kills many more people in total per year. Should alcohol makers face the death penalty? I say these people have personal agency and unless someone forces them to do drugs then the consequences for doing them falls solely on their shoulders.

If I treat my livestock with an antibiotic that may cause harm. And don’t follow the label for withdrawal and you eat it, should I be held liable? I mean users only want beef from undiseased animals right? Using fentanyl in a non-proscribed method is different how?

I’m not clear on why a run-of-the-mill drug dealer would want to kill his customers like that, but I suppose if he intentially laced his product with a lethal dose of something, then yeah, he would be guilty same as anyone else commiting murder.

This is my argument. If a drug dealer is trying to kill somebody, then it’s 1st degree murder, open-and-shut. That’s rather bad for business, though, and instead I expect the overdoses are due entirely to incompetence. Fentanyl is active at 0.1mg doses, so a scale to properly weigh it would be tens of thousands of dollars. There are also analogues out a hundred times more powerful than fentanyl. The reason illegal drugs get stronger over time is to reduce the volume necessary when smuggling. A kilogram of carfentanyl would be… uhh… probably close to a million doses. I don’t feel like doing math right now.

There’s an awful lot of FUD going on in this post. “Well, my third-hand source said Trump specified ‘all drug dealers’ so of course that includes your pal Joe dealing weed in the dorms….” Well, actually we don’t know anything of the sort but let’s write a confusing post about it anyway.

True. I think drugs, like guns, are an issue prone to knee-jerk reactions. There is no way Trump, or any politician who values his/her position, would really support Duterte-style vigilantism, but there are those in our country who would, and incendiary stories like this stoke the fire. I think it’s possible to report on Trump realistically. I think.

Oh snap. I was off by a few orders of magnitude and so are you. Carfentanyl is 100 times stronger than fentanyl, so a dose would be 0.001mg. 1 gram would be 10^6 doses, so a kg would be 10^9 doses. My BS alarm is ringing hard, but it checks out. Now, ain’t nobody making kilos of carfentanyl. A dusting would take out a town, and I’m pretty sure it was used during the Moscow theatre crisis and killed pretty much everyone except the opiate-addicted terrorists.

Damnit. Should’ve just done the math at the beginning. I had this problem all through school. Turns out “feelings” don’t make for sound science.

Since most drug dealers are likely driven by a desire for profit, I doubt any of them would intentionally kill one of their paying customers.

But if you really want to make sure there isn’t some poisonous mix-up that occurs on occasion, the best thing to do would be to legalize ALL of it. I mean, back during Prohibition, you had people dying from drinking bathtub gin and all kinds of adulterated booze. When was the last time you heard about someone walking out of a package store and later dying because their whiskey was cut with methyl alcohol?

As for Trump’s hatred of drug dealers being imaginary TDS… I’d like to think so, but then there’s AG Jeff Sessions and his dinosaur thinking and reefer madness. If Trump was open minded on drug legalization, Sessions would have been pink-slipped by now (or more likely never appointed).

Trump made pro-legaliz’n statements over many yrs., & has never AFAIK explicitly repudiated them. He might have in mind some schizophrenic policy that’d make drugs easier to get legally but have violations policed more tightly and/or punished more severely.

Did I say wants to? It is pretty much guaranteed that if you actions, rather willful or not, if they result in the death of another, you are responsible for that. Negligence that results in someone’s death is criminal according to our laws. Especially, when you are being willfully negligent.

A lethal dose though depends on the user’s tolerance, so the outlier may die when the rest of his clients are happy with the product. But dropping a few customers can actually increase sales when other addicts hear that this guy has the strongest product on the market.

We should not be surprised Trump holds these views, given that he has encouraged law enforcement violence against people suspected of crimes, suggested that we don’t torture enough

Much to the delight of the “Suck Trump’s Dick” Squad at Fox & Friends.

The predilection for violence coming from this president should be grounds for much concern, especially when he delights with the idea of torturing people or placing innocent laborers on to boxcars to ship them across the border to the Sonora Desert.

It’s especially interesting that for all this talk about mass shooters, the American public and politicians embrace the idea of violence on a wide spectrum of issues. Looking at the violent culture that produces mass shooters in the first place (aside from other factors) would be too much brain work. Much easier to look at these issues in a vacuum and hyperventilate about needing easy answers.

There goes trying to use the WoD and it’s logical conclusions when arguing with Dems about further gun control – the asshole wearing the MAGA hat will pipe up that it’s fine executing drug dealers in the pursuit of utopia but executing NRA members and gun company CEO’s us is totally not ok y’all.

A few days ago I would have called this an unfair comparison between Republicans and Democrats. But I ran across a Dem call for capital punishment to apply to gun dealers whose guns were used in the the commission of a crime. Sigh.

It’s difficult to take Trump (or Trump hearsay) seriously, as he usually makes all sorts of extreme statements, which seem to be directly tied to what thoughts are floating around at a particular moment.

On a side note, if one openly muses about which non-murder crimes are passable for the death penalty and which aren’t, they should recheck their libertarian status.

“President Trump on Monday slammed the “disgusting” law enforcement officers who failed to rush into the Florida high school earlier this month as a gunman slaughtered students and teachers inside, claiming he would have entered the school himself even without a firearm to stop the attacker.”

Why is this a story? Third hand sources relay something Trump says in conversation, but cite no policy action stemming from it. huh. almost like the POTUS can have personal AND professional opinions on topics. amazing.

Someone whose older brother died of substance addition should have a bit of leeway to have a “passionate” opinion on a topic. Until it become policy proposals….who cares?

At least the POTUS isn’t a cokehead hypocrite….so we got that going for us.

Just once I wish you people would look at the big picture instead of blindly running down Trump. By eliminating drug dealers you would get rid of most of the CIA and if you extended that to drug users you would get rid of most of the politicians. But it would probably be like most other laws in this country, it would not apply to the rich or politically connected. Just to the rabble

Actually, you find none. Quite a few authoritarian right-wingers prancing about in unconvincing libertarian drag, though, accompanied by some socially inept, backward goobers who fall for the masquerade.

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